Because I just can't make this stuff up.

Monthly Archives: February 2017

It was the first day back from school vacation. And the two weeks before that were filled with enough snow days to keep them in school until July (Here’s your red, white & blue outfit, kids. Enjoy your class Fourth of July Party!). Trying to get two teenagers up & out the door on a good day is work enough. Today involved trumpets & a system of weights & pulleys to hoist them out of bed & on their way.

The rest of today’s schedule was:

8:30 am – 5 pm: Woooooooooooooooooork – which was the Monday of all Mondays.

5:30 pm: Get The Boy. Bring him to band practice

6 pm: Get The Girl. Bring her to volunteer program kick off event

6:30 pm: Bring The Boy home

7:15 pm: Bring The Girl home

7:30 pm: Make dinner

8 pm: Ignore laundry

8:05 pm: Open wine

8:06 pm: Ignore world

The Girl’s volunteer kick off event was for a group that run a number of homeless shelters & low-cost housing in our city. She will be working with an after school program for homeless kids. When I went to pick her up from the kick off event, she was nowhere to be found. My heart sank. She has been struggling with anxiety & depression in the past few months & my first thought was that she got overwhelmed by the amount of moms & kids in the room & was hiding somewhere. Instead, I found her crouched on the floor in the back of the room with a little girl about three years old. They were making shapes out of beads & guessing what the other had made. I watched her for a few minutes then looked around the room. It was filled with moms & kids. Moms like me. Kids like mine. Only we were going home to our big house. Our big, not-so-warm-house-but-only-because-I’m-cheap-and-don’t-want-to-turn-up-the-heat house with the cabinets full of food. They… well, they were not. They were going to one of the designated apartments in the building we were in. Or they were going wherever they could. One woman was in her car with her two kids looking for a laundromat. I offered her quarters & we went on our way.

And I was grateful for everything I have. My job. My home. My kids. My crazy life.

And then I came across this on Facebook….

And I wanted to scream.

Because I didn’t enjoy my life today. Not remotely. Life took me down today. Life showed me moms who just wanted the best for their kids & couldn’t give it to them. Even in those moments I was feeling grateful I was also feeling like life was harsh & it was hurtful & I wanted to punch it in the throat. Because that’s what life does sometimes. “Enjoy my life today?” I don’t think so, Charlie Brown.

And then it’s topped off with “tomorrow may never come?” For f**k’s sake, really? There’s already enough pressure to “enjoy life today.” Now I have to be concerned that “tomorrow may never come,” too? I’m a reasonably healthy human being. Frankly, I kind of take it for granted that tomorrow IS going to come. It’s true, though – there are occasions where the dairy free, gluten free, vegan who runs marathons drops dead. But for the most part, we’re all going to see tomorrow. (And since it’s 11:57 pm, I think I have a pretty good shot.)

As the lyric goes in the musical “Hamilton” – “Life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners & the saints – it take & it takes & it takes. And we keep living anyway. We rise & we fall & we break & we make our mistakes.” (This guy could sing the phone book & I’d listen to it.)

Sometimes we just have to wait for it. Some days, we can’t just “enjoy our life today” on cue because Charlie Brown tells us to. Some days we have to wait for it. Wait for the better days. Wait to enjoy the day. And that’s okay. It’s okay to feel bad sometimes. It passes. Wait for it.

Even when someone has it worse than you. It passes & you do whatever you can to help while you wait for it.